Provision restricting medical practitioners' enlistment to those practicing in the Bombay area as of a specific date violates the right to equality under Article 14.

1. These two petitions under Art.226 and Art.227 of the Constitution seek to challenge the constitutional validity of S.18(2)(b)(ii) of the Maharashtra Medical Practitioners' Act , 1961.

2. The petitioner in Special Civil Application No. 2066 of 1966 comes from Sind which now forms part of West Pakistan. He claims that his grand - father and his father were well known physicians practising Ayurvedic and Unani Systems of Medicine. After the partition of the country, the family migrated to Harni camp at Baroda. The petitioner says that he started an independent dispensary at Baroda for practice in Unani and Ayurvedic Systems of Medicine and that he was practising in Baroda from 1950 to 1954. In 1954 he shifted to Ulhasnagar near Bombay, where he has been practising since then. After the passing of the Maharashtra Medical Practitioners' Act , 1961, he applied to the Board of Ayurvedic and Unani Systems of Medicine set up by the Act for inclusion of his name in the list maintained under S.18 thereof. S.18(2) (b)(ii) of the Act requires that the applicant should satisfy the Committee of the Board 'that on the 4th November 1951 he was regularly practising any such system of medicine (i. e. any system other than the Homoeopathic or the Biochemic System of Medicine) in the Bombay area of the State'. In S.3(6) of the Bombay General Clauses Act, the expression 'Bombay area of the State of Maharashtra' has been defined to mean 'the area of the State of Maharashtra excluding the Vidarbha region and the Hyderabad area of that State'. According to the petitioner, he was practising on 4th November 1951 at Baroda, which was then included in the Bombay State but is not now a part of the State of Maharashtra. His application for having his name included in the list was rejected by the Committee of the Board on the ground that on 4th November 1951 he was not practising any system of medicine in the Bombay area of the State. An appeal filed by the petitioner to the Appellate Authority under the Act was also rejected for the same reason. The petitioner has approached this Court under Art.226 and Art.227 of the Constitution for having these orders of the Committee and the Appellate Authority quashed and set aside.

3. The petitioner in Special Civil Application No. 82 of 1966 also comes from Sind which is now a part of West Pakistan. The petitioner says that her father was a medical graduate of the Bombay University, that he was practising allopathic system of medicine in Sind, and that she (the petitioner) started helping him in practice from about 1937 when she was about 16 years of age. After the partition of the country, the family migrated to Akbar Camps at Thana in 1948. In October 1948 the petitioner's father was appointed a Medical Officer at Bhavnagar in Saurashtra and the petitioner also shifted there. The petitioner claimed that she had an independent practice in allopathic medicine at Bhavnagar from 1948 to 1958. In 1958 the petitioner shifted to Poona, where she started a maternity home which is still being run by her. On 12th August 1963 she applied to the Board of Ayurvedic and Unani Systems of Medicine to have her name included in the list maintained under S.18 of the Maharashtra Medical Practitioners' Act , 1961. Her application was rejected by the Committee of the Board, and in appeal by the Appellate Authority, on the ground that on 4th November 1951 she was practising, according to her case, at Bhavnagar which is not a part of the Bombay area of the State of Maharashtra. In her petition she prays t